Flipboard launches ‘social websites’ to help publishers tap the open social web

Flipboard has unveiled a new feature called social websites, offering creators and publishers a way to establish their own dedicated spaces on the internet built around conversations happening across the open social web.

These social websites are designed to aggregate discussions and content from decentralised, public platforms, including Mastodon and Bluesky, as well as other sources across the web. The concept is centred on bringing together distributed conversations into a single, creator-controlled destination.

According to Flipboard, social websites allow users to combine a wide range of content types — including social media posts, videos, podcasts, newsletters, blogs, and RSS feeds — into one unified hub. Creators can connect content from platforms such as Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, YouTube, podcasts, and personal blogs, creating a centralised experience for their audience.

The company views this approach as a shift toward a more community-driven model of social media, where creators and publishers have greater ownership over how their content is presented and how conversations are organised. Flipboard has been increasingly focused on decentralised social ecosystems in recent years, and this launch builds on that direction by simplifying access to the open social web.

Flipboard CEO Mike McCue explained that the goal is to help creators and publishers form communities around their work without needing to build an audience from scratch. Instead, they can consolidate existing conversations and followers from multiple platforms into a single environment while maintaining control over the user experience, including how content is surfaced.

The introduction of social websites also represents the first web-based expansion of Surf, Flipboard’s reader application designed to help users navigate and explore the open social web. These new sites are powered by Surf feeds, which serve as the backbone for aggregating and organising content.

Flipboard has already begun collaborating with several publishers and creators who have launched their own social websites using the feature. Publications such as The Verge, Wired, Rolling Stone, 404 Media, and The Oregonian have created hubs where readers can follow journalists, access podcasts and videos, and engage with ongoing discussions in one place. Individual creators are also adopting the format. For example, David Rushing has launched a site called All Net, which focuses on basketball and brings together NBA-related conversations, news updates, video content, and real-time commentary into a single destination for fans.

By introducing social websites, Flipboard aims to provide a new structure for how online communities form and interact, leveraging decentralised platforms while giving creators more direct control over their content and audience relationships.